Charred Metal and Hope
by SuperNatasha
Summary: Arya Stark is a wolf, and a wolf cannot quite become faceless, not when she is haunted by the memories of her past- and one face is particular. These are her lessons in Braavos. Each chapter represents a lesson. Arya/Gendry mostly. Spoilers for the series and fan theories. TW: There will be explicit scenes of a violent/sexual nature.
1. The Art of Changing Faces

The House of Black and White is as much home as Winterfell is, which is to say it is not a home at all. It is a shrine, it is an academy. It is where she must learn her trade and nothing more. She cannot begin to think of it as home, because she is No One, and No One has no home.

But even No One has memories.

So when the Kindly Man finds her in the room with thousands of faces on the wall, he asks her, "What are you looking for?"

And without thinking, bluntly and impatiently, she answers, "Someone from home."

He slaps her across the face, hard. She feels her skin burn and heat collect on that cheek. There will be a handprint when she checks her reflection later. The wolf inside her wants to snarl and tear his head off, but the girl bites her lower lip and tries not to wince.

"Who are you?" the Kindly Man asks her.

"No one."

"And where is home?"

"Nowhere."

"So what are you looking for?"

"Nothing."

He nods and leaves her there. She stays only until she is sure the mark from her cheek would have faded before joining him in the morgue, where he instructs her to empty skins of their guts and save their faces. She tries not to search for familiar faces. She has no familiar faces. She is No One.

* * *

"These are not the only faces you can be," the Waif whispers later to the girl.

The girl looks up, eyes wide. The Waif's childish face raises an eyebrow.

"You can be any face you want. He will not teach you that; he will not allow anyone else to teach you that. Faces bring back memories and he doesn't want that. If you want to be faceless, you must be memoryless, he says."

"I am," the girl lies, and the Waif only smiles.

"You are Arya Stark of Winterfell," the Waif taps her nose lightly and says, "I create poisons, I breathe toxins, I smell herbs. And I have smelled the wet dog in you from the moment you arrived."

"Wolf," Arya automatically corrects, and cringes instantly.

The Waif only laughs.

* * *

That night, the girl stares into the mirror and tries to change her face, but all she can see are grey eyes and chopped brown hair.

She does not try again, not that night, only falls asleep and dreams of running on four legs.

She asks the Waif the next day, "How do you do it? Stay looking like a child?"

The Waif says, "I was not given a choice. This is how the Many-Faced God prefers me."

"Says who?" the girl retorts, her voice rising an octave.

The Waif glances back suspiciously to ensure no one was listening or watching. "Calm that wolf, pup, or we'll both be in trouble."

She lowers her voice and whispers furiously, "You told me yesterday the Kindly Man lies! Then how can you believe him when he says you cannot change?"

"I never learned," the Waif admits, and the girl knows it is the truth, reads it in her face.

"Then how am I supposed to?" she asks in anguish.

"I will help you," replies the Waif.

"Why?"

The Waif peers at her. "Because the Kindly Man does not realize you do not belong here, but I do, Cat of the Canals. Or should I call you Cat of Riverrun?"

The girl flinches as though she'd been slapped by a ghost from the past. "How…?"

"I can smell the fish in you, too," the Waif says kindly.

The girl has no words.

* * *

A week later, the Handsome Man finds her outside one of the famed brothels in the city. She is a beggar today, a beggar with no hands and only one ear and unseemly sores covering half of her face. No one looks at her twice, though she reads all of them as they go by.

"Hello, wolfling," he says, kneeling down.

The beggar recognizes him at once (it is hard to miss eyes of a peculiar shade- thinking later, she will not be able to name that color). She nudges her beggar's bowl closer with one knee and says, "Fuck off."

"Oh, now that is harsh coming from someone who needs my help."

"I don't need your help," the beggar says.

"Everyone needs my help," the Man winks and stands. As he walks away, he tosses over his shoulders, "Especially the ones who want a different face."

Recognizing 'help' that the Waif had spoken of, the beggar abandons her post and runs after him, calling, "Wait!"

He does not wait and he does not slow until they reach an alley and he grabs her by the waist and pulls her into it, pinning her against the wall. Without hands, she finds it difficult to resist and she struggles for a moment before suddenly realizing how close his face was to hers. She ceases her flailing and stares at him hypnotized.

For a moment, his face shimmers. It turns into another face: intense blue eyes and shaggy locks of black hair. The arms holding her bulge with muscles, and she smells charred metal and hope. The beggar leans into him, lips angled to catch his.

"Stop," the Handsome Man commands, and she suddenly inhales, realizing she had been holding her breath while his gaze had been upon her. His face is back, the one he had approached her with.

"What did you do to me?" she demands breathlessly, angry. She wants to slash at his irresistible face until it is hanging by shreds, but all she can manage are meager thrashes of the nubs of her missing arms.

"It doesn't matter what I did because I stopped. I don't want to fuck you. I want to teach you."

He is telling the truth. Still, the beggar kicks him between his legs with her knee and watches him fall to the ground with a groan.

"You can teach me, but never again play these games with me."

"You stupid wolfling," the Handsome man spits, regaining his composure and getting back on his feet. "I was testing you."

"Testing me? For what?"

"To see if you are truly faceless. You are not. You are a girl who has yet to let go of the past. No One does not want to kiss a stag bastard smith; a girl does. Understand?"

The beggar nods dumbly.

The Handsome Man grins impishly. "The Waif told me you were a wolf. I didn't think wolves could be dangerous without any claws."

"Then you haven't seen a wolf's fangs yet," Arya says, baring her own.

* * *

It is not difficult to get away from the Kindly Man for her lessons in changing face, no more than it was difficult for Arya to get away from her entourage to learn 'dancing' from Syro Forrel.

The Handsome Man prepares her, tells her it is incredibly challenging to conjure faces that don't exist yet, or exist only in memories. It is an art, it is poetry. One needs to pay attention or they would change the very fiber of their being.

"Then why do you do it? Create your own faces instead of using the ones in the room?" Arya questions him.

"Those faces wouldn't get a woman to return a smile, let alone get one to come," the Man tells her.

"Come where?"

The Handsome Man howls with laughter. He doesn't answer her and she doesn't ask again.

* * *

"How did you know he was a bastard and a smith?" she asks him as they're finishing their lessons one evening.

The Handsome Man's face is lit by the setting sun, glowing with fire, warm. "That's what your face told me. Thoughts are like lying; they show on your face if you know how to read them. Your thoughts, wolfling, show on your face more often than you'd like. Reading them is something I was born with and I gave it in service to the Many-Faced God."

Arya considers. "Why did you say he was a stag?"

He shrugs. "He is."

"No, he's not."

"You do not know what he is and what he is not," he sneers, almost in mockery.

She becomes defensive at his tone. "I knew he was a bastard. I knew he was a smith."

"You did not know he was a stag."

"Then how did you?" she demands.

"That's what his face told me."

"With his thoughts?"

The Handsome Man shakes his head. "With his features, wolfling."

Arya thinks about that for hours after. She thinks of the stags, of Robert Baratheon and Renly Baratheon and Stannis Baratheon. She thinks of Cersei and the rumors of her brother Jaime, and of the three golden-haired children Cersei sired, of what Cersei had ordered to be done to the Baratheon bastards in Kings Landing after her husband king had died.

She thinks of Gendry. She _misses _Gendry. She thinks until she knows, until she cannot bear to think any more.

She does not think when she is asleep, she dreams of Nymeria.

* * *

He eventually refuses to teach her. "You know all that I can tell you," the Handsome Man says, his beard the color of straw, nearly transparent on a face that still manages to be beautiful. Can men be beautiful? Arya does not know, only that he is.

"I still cannot change my face," she complains.

"You will, someday. When you want to."

"I want to now."

The Handsome Man reaches down and touches her hair. "A wolfling can only shed her coat when she knows what color she wants."

* * *

She knows what she wants. She wants her family back. She wants playful Rickon and wise Bran and stupid Sansa. She wants Robb and Jon training out in the yard. She wants her lady mother to run soothing fingers through her hair and her lord father to compliment her skills with Needle.

Arya stares at herself in the mirror until she knows what she wants.

The reflection in the mirror shimmers and another face emerges in the silvery-red light filtering in through the bars of the window: a face that is delicate and lovely. Pale skin, red slashes of lips, shiny auburn hair. Watery blue eyes peered back at her. In another lifetime, she had been her sister. Not a sister she had loved, not even admired, but a member of her pack nonetheless. She knows there is no way Sansa's face would remain beautiful and innocent, not after all that had happened to it. She would become beautiful and fierce instead, and strong. Yes, strong like Lady was until the lions had killed her.

She changes her face again, one as light as snow, as his name. Curly hair and dark eyes, a face not Tully but certainly Stark. The bastard brother. Another face she does not expect to see again. Jon had given her Needle; surely that is worth keeping in her memory more than the paltry chance of seeing him alive. She is less likely to be disappointed by steel than by hope.

She thinks on what the Handsome Man had said and tries to read his features. There is Stark undoubtedly in his face, but there was another winged creature lurking in its long cheekbones and dark gray eyes. Eyes like Arya.

_Lyanna's eyes, her father had once laughed when she complained her eyes were not like the sky in sunshine but more like the sky in a storm._

Swiftly, Arya leaves his face before her mind can put the pieces together; she does not want to know. Only see.

One after another, Arya tries on the faces of all her siblings.

She tries to smooth the tangles of Rickon's hair, thinking how wild Shaggydog must be if Rickon kept up his insolence.

She runs a hand over the stubble on Robb's hollowed cheekbones. His is the wolf Nymeria can no longer find the scent of when she runs. He was the one the Hound had prevented Arya from dying with. Arya feels strange to look over his face, knowing it no longer existed, her eyes pricking until tears spill over Robb's cheeks.

After her siblings, she wears the faces of her parents. She looks at her father's face through the gaze of a woman and not a girl, the dark circles under his eyes and the laugh lines on his forehead. She forgives him, for becoming Hand and for bringing her to King's Landing, for being a loyal and honest man.

(If she closes her eyes, she can almost imagine him chuckling and his gravelly voice telling her to behave with her sister, congratulating her for doing well with swords, thanking her for bringing him flowers. She does not close her eyes).

She stares at her mother, who was aging with visible grace and beauty, the wrinkles only accentuating her features. A kind face. She knew her mother was dead now. Once, as Nymeria, she had gotten a scent that she recognized as her mother, but it was clouded and masked under a metallic taste, blood and death and melancholy. The wolf ran in the opposite direction and the girl did not argue. Now, she wants more than anything to get a whiff of it.

Satisfied and crestfallen, Arya returns to her own face.

* * *

The next time she sees the Handsome Man with the other priests, she smiles at him and nods, trying to convey how successfully she had changed faces. He does not react, simply looks away.

She tries not to be hurt.

Arya would be hurt, she knew. But she was not Arya, not here in view of the Kindly Man and in the light of the temple. A wolf could only shed her coat in the privacy of her room.

So she tries not to be hurt. She tries to be No One.


	2. The Art of Self Exploration

Weasel, Nan, Salty, Arry… she thinks sometimes that she has so many names, she will never be able to remember her real one. Almost as if that name no longer exists. And why should it, when the girl the name had belonged to no longer exists? She is No One.

There is only this: a nameless, faceless presence who can kill a man without lifting a finger and dreams of running with wolves. Yes, there is this.

There is a girl who learned of death when her father was beheaded, who learned of love when the bastard she loved chose brothers over her, who learned of loss when the Hound didn't let her die with her mother and brother, who learned of sacrifice when she left behind Westeros.

The girl who finally became a woman in Braavos.

When she'd had her first moon's blood, the Kindly Man told her she could choose to keep the blood, and the body that brought it, or she could let it go and slip into others. She chose to leave it. Chose to leave the breasts she would have to bind every morning, chose to leave the hips that would attract the attention of men.

It's not that she was unaware. Cat of the Canals knew what happened behind closed doors, between men and woman, or men and men, or women and women, or those who didn't fit in. She had seen through a thousand eyes, cats and dogs and cripples and beggars. Once, as a tabby, she had even followed the Handsome Man on his daily affairs and saw him seduce several women. The Man had known she was there and winked at the cat on the rafters, and the woman under him had screamed and screamed and the tabby had jumped off the roof and ran away.

She had taken bodies or all shapes and sizes and colors. She knows the anatomy. But she has no time to care about that. She has work to be done, which the Kindly Man or the Waif give her every morning. Sweeping, skinning, sighing.

This day's work is nearly over, and she is tired- a tiredness that has seeped down into her bones. By the time she is finished with the gutting and storing of organs, her body is dirt-laden and sticky with blood. She discards the large soft body, reminding her of gentle Hodor, and returns to her own body. It feels foreign; she has spent such little time in it. She heads down to her room in the bowels of the building. It's cold and sterile, wan light coming in through the barred window and a mirror for her to inspect her body for the day.

She finishes a simple meal and falls asleep rather quickly (there is another body calling to her, from an ocean away) on the straw bed. She finds the wolf almost immediately. The wolf doesn't mind when she slips in, barely acknowledging the new conscious. And she runs, _runs_ through the forest.

She comes across a scent and her muscles come to a stop. With her nose to the ground, she follows the scent. She cannot place it. The wolf, and the girl inside the wolf, have become adept at identifying smells, particularly those of meat: squirrel, rabbit, rat, crow. But this is none of them. It is more visceral that that, unfamiliar in her territory. Nymeria knows instinctively that this is none of her pack.

Sometimes, Nymeria feels other presences calling to her, siblings. Never the eldest or the kindest of them, those she doesn't feel anymore. But there are others, a silent one and a feral one and one that has seen more than she can understand. But this scent is unlike any of those. Nymeria surges forward, losing her track temporarily when a fresh layer of snow on the ground masks the scent, but then she leaps over a branch and finds the source of it.

It is a large wolf, with black fur. Not as a large as a direwolf, but comparable. The beast growls at Nymeria. Nymeria bares her own fangs and raises her hackles with a guttural snarl. A moment later, the wolf lets out a soft "whoof" and falls back on his haunches.

Nymeria returns the gesture and relaxes, approaches him. The male lets her thoroughly sniff him and waits patiently for her to finish.

The girl in the wolf insists, _Intruder! Stranger!_ But Nymeria silences her and touches her snout to the male's jaws. She turns her head to the moon and howls softly, not loud enough for her pack to find her, just enough for the male to join in. Nymeria raises her tail and allows the wolf near her, welcoming.

Arya wakes with a gasp, a start, and a thought:

_I am a woman._

She is not No One and she cannot pretend any longer. Though she is exhausted and conflicted, she rises and finds herself before the mirror, examining the face in the mirror. She see's wild eyes and matted hair, too-thin lips and too-wide teeth, sloping cheekbones with shiny gray eyes peering out from under straight eyebrows, her long face streaked with dirt.

_Horseface._

She remembers, when she was younger, her mother running a hand over her cheeks and leaving behind rouge the color of withered flowers. She had looked as though she had come down with the flu. Hers was not a face meant to look pretty (her father compared her to Lyanna, but that was not a face she knew). Untamed and glorious, yes, like something out of the Godswood, but not pretty. Unlike Sansa's face. Sansa was beautiful, no matter what. But she could not be Sansa.

Today, she does not want her face. She sends silent thankful prayer to the Many-Faced God for sending the Handsome Man to her and teaching her the art of changing faces.

Finally, Arya closes her eyes and considers which face she would wear if not her own. Jacquen? Not his new face, but the one she had met, the one that had died when she said his name. No, even that was not the face she wanted.

She knew then, explicitly, which face, which _body, _to call upon. She does the best she can from memory and lets instinct fill in the rest. By the time she opens her eyes, she felt as though he was physically present in the room.

Gendry Waters.

His angry dark eyes shined out from under heavy eyebrows, dark hair a mess falling over his forehead. It surprised Arya that seeing him brought about a physical ache deep in her belly- his belly. Curiously, she pulls up her tunic and she knows that body (pressing against it in the dark for warmth, bending over a hearth forging metal, covered in a sheen of sweat)- yes, she knows that body. Arya feels perverse; surely it was crossing some boundary. She cannot help the feeling that comes upon her so strongly that she has to let his body drop and return to her own.

They are not the feelings of a girl missing her wolf, nor a girl who is unsatisfied with her face; they are the feelings of a woman who needs a fucking.

The thought catches her off guard. She has desires. Where previously, she had only had a childish notion of fancying a lad, now she had lust.

Back in herself, the matured and flowered Arya, she focuses on her body when before she had examined only her face. She pulls her blouse over her head and lets it fall in a heap to the floor, facing this peculiar sight before her. She is _curvy, _lean and lithe, but with swells in places she had not realized. Her breasts are round, small and unwilling to bow to the ground. She reaches up and touches one of the small pink buds. It elicits a gasp from her.

This was going to take time, Arya thought. Almost instinctively, she heads for her straw bed. There is so much she doesn't know, what to do, how to do it. But her skin is smooth and inviting. Her fingers head down, dipping at her navel before she pulls off her breeches and crumples them with her blouse. Arya comes across hair, more like wolf fur, but she has no time to be curious as she feels a stirring that she inexplicably links with Gendry.

She finds herself wet when her fingers reach down. With her first experimental stroke, she knows she has found what she was looking for. It feels amazing, better than any other sensation she has felt in her time alive. Arya knows it is not done yet- there is still more lurking under the surface that she must drive to the edge. She parts her legs further, grazing over herself with her knuckles.

Arya squeezes her eyes shut and lets her mind wander- but there is only one face to return to.

She thinks of Gendry leaning over her, his knee between her legs and nudging at her entrance. His rough fire-licked hands kneading her breasts, twisting and pulling, tracing his tongue down her skin, tugging at the delicate flesh with his teeth. She trembles thinking of how his beard would feel against the insides of her thighs, how his skin would be flushed red.

One hand still rubbing, she feels inside herself with a finger of the other hand and that ache is lost in physical want. She knows better than to raise her voice lest the walls have ears, but even she cannot help the soft sighs and moans escaping her throat. Despite the scratchy straw stuffing, her hips grind against the mattress. Then she finds her nub, the spot she need only press to see the gods, and she howls softly as her wolf had done.

Had this beauty always been here, waiting for her to return? How was it that she had forsaken this body with its joys still so unexplored? She craved for the nights she ran as a wolf, but even Nymeria did not bring her this weightless flight with her speed as this body did with simple touches.

She imagines Gendry hunching over her, working his tongue where her fingers are. The fantasy gets stronger and the smell of musk pervades so she can't breathe out, only inhales short staccato breathes. There is something else, another smell in the air: charred metal and hope. The hearth. Home.

Gendry peering up at her with his intense blue eyes and that mischievous smile, his husky voice whispering "Mi'lady," even though she hates being called that, two fingers inside begging her to come- and _oh._

She does.

Her eyes open wide and her back arches as waves of pleasure curl her entire body. Arya growls, a sound unfit for a girl, even for a woman, but not for a she-wolf. She rides out the breathless climax with her head thrown back against the straw.

She does not know how she will ever leave this body for another; nothing else would ever feel like home as unequivocally as this one does.

_My body_, she thinks with pride.

Arya waits until her breathing returns to normal before throwing on her clothes and sinking back down on the mattress. She knows now why, behind closed doors, women scream and shriek and call for the gods, but not in pain or prayer.

Finally, after years of being faceless, she has a face again. She has memories. She remembers Winterfell and Syrio Forel, she remembers Harrenhal. Just for this one night, she allows herself to think of everything she's lost, her brothers and sister, her home, everything she was. It was no wonder she had chosen to become faceless instead of a face with nowhere to go.

She remembers at last and lets those memories haunt her.

She does not remember falling asleep, and she does not remember the prayer escaping her lips as she falls out of conscious, "Ser Amory, Raff the Sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei…"


	3. The Art of Murder

There is beauty in death.

The first time she had killed a man, she had used poison. There was no shame in it- poison was a weapon as deadly as steel. The Waif could make whatever weapon was desired, fast and painless, slow and torturous, leaving one paralyzed, leaving blemishes and scars- undetectable and subtle.

There is beauty in poison.

The second time, she uses her blade. She watches the blood gather on the dusty streets, running in tiny rivers down his body, a tantalizing crimson color. She loves the scent of salt and iron, tiny specks soaking through her tunic. Later, she washes off her hands and the water turns pink, like a maiden blushing at a knight.

There is beauty in blood.

It is the third time that she knows not to use a blade. When the Kindly Man gives her a name, she does not strap her dagger to her body to dispose of him. He is a man she has heard of many times, a ship captain who regularly brings cargo from Westeros. He is not a man with a shortage of enemies and she does not question why he must die. Only that he must and she must do it without shedding a single drop of blood or the assistance of the Waif. The Kindly Man had been adamant about it.

She mulls over how to kill him without making a mess or using poison. After days of following the captain through the city, she knows. He has a weakness: the beauty of women.

Instead of a sword or poison, she will kill him with her body. She has never done it before, but the thought of trying thrills her. She picks a face from the Room, with large green eyes and golden hair, and becomes another being entirely. She keeps her own body, lithe and comely, tall but not unattractive.

No One is beautiful for once in her life. She throws on a lovely dress the color of the sea found on a woman who had accepted the Many-Faced God's gift in the fountain, and a string of emeralds that sparkle with every movement. She wears the face and the face gives her a name:

Elysa.

On the night the captain is fated to die, Elysa leaves the House of Black and White and heads for the pub across from the brothels. There is an electric charge in the air and she can smell the storm that should be upon Braavos soon, the wolf urging her to seek shelter. Clouds grumble and the winds moan. Elysa stares up at the sky.

A moment later, the sky lights up fiercely: streaks of blue race through the black clouds, a complex root pattern even the Godswood could not compare with. The blue is so vivid that it reminds the memories in Elysa's body of another blue: of eyes. Blue eyes under black hair.

Elysa looks away and quickens her pace. Ruining this dress before she got to the pub would be a shame. No One does not care for the dress, but Elysa does.

When she gets there, it is crowded and hot and an eye-watering stink of bodies and ale.

_Like the Peach. She shakes the memory out of her head. Elysa has never been to the Peach_.

Her eyes pick out the Captain, already drunk and holding a woman in his lap. He is singing out of tune and belligerently sloshing his mug of ale on the wooden benches.

Elysa waits for the woman to get tired of the Captain's groping and steps in. She takes the Captain's arms and says in a surprisingly sweet voice, "Let's find us a room, good ser."

He laughs raucously and repeats "Ser?" in amazement.

No, he is no ser. But she has a job.

He's twice as heavy as her, easily three times her size. But her body is strong from carrying corpses up and down the steps of the temple, and she has reached a considerable height (_she thinks she may be as tall as Robb, but she cannot remember how tall Robb was; sometimes, she cannot remember who Robb was at all_).

She guides him out of the pub. He points her in the direction of the inn he's staying at and Elysa tries to hold him upright as he stumbles in intoxication. They reach the inn just as a smattering of drizzle starts.

Once they reach his room, she leaves him crumpled on the bed and lights the lanterns in the room. Even they do nothing to help the stuffy dampness in the room, so she opens the window. The comforting saltiness of the sea and the oncoming rain's earthiness soothes her instantly. Another spark of blue lightning ignites the sky and the roar of thunder that follows reverberates through her bones.

"You gonna fuck me or are you here to enjoy the view?" the Captain slurs.

_I am here to kill you.__  
_  
The Kindly Man did not teach her to kill, but No One knows how to. Still, she does not move yet. Elysa does not know how to. Elysa had lived and died as a whore. She knows not the beauty of death. If a body is all she has, she must learn to use it- as a weapon, as a tool.

So Elysa moves forward and helps him take off his breeches, his shirt soiled with vomit, smallclothes that desperately need a washing. Her mind turns in circles. Does she have the strength to snap his neck? Does she have the knowledge to strike in the one spot that would incapacitate him? How does one kill without spilling blood?

The captain grows impatient and grabs Elysa roughly with both hands. He tears the cloth of her gown down the front and Elysa laments for the dress. The tatters of fabric flutter in the wind from the window. He shoves her down on the mattress with both hands roughly palming her breasts and for a moment Elysa- _Arya- _struggles, suddenly panicked. She hadn't expected this.

Before she can protest or leave, the captain is above her, suffocating, reeking of decay and filth. Arya prepares to throw him off but she can't risk him hurting himself and drawing blood. It would be so easy to stick Needle into his stomach, past the layers of fat and into his gut. She can almost hear the _squick _of his organs spilling out of him as she slits upward, skin giving away like butter. The desire for combat is so strong that Arya eases her sudden movements and inhales through her nose, keeping her bloodlust in check. She must wait it out, as much as the wolf snarls and fights inside to geld the monster above her.

He positions himself above her and-

A sharp pain goes through Arya and she gasps. She bites her lower lip as he thrusts further into her. Tears film Elysa's green eyes, but she keeps herself from letting them overflow. She will not give this world the satisfaction of her tears from something as meager as physical hurt. So she locks her jaw, squeezes her eyes shut, and steels for the next wave of pain.

Even with her eyes closed, it doesn't get better. His grunts mixed with vague grumblings resound in her ears and she has to fight to gag from his stench. Thankfully, a moment later, a loud pattering on the roof distracts her. It's pouring outside, finally. A loud crackle of thunder shakes the inn, right down to the wooden bed. Arya focuses on the shaking of the thunder instead of the shaking of her body or the shaking of the emeralds around her neck. She thinks back to the blue lightning, of blue eyes. For just an instant, the figure above becomes tender and sculpted and she doesn't hurt quite so bad. Her mind conjures up the scent of charred metal and hope- but only for a flash of the lightning. Then the captain above returns to the center of her mind and the fantasy is ruined.

The captain is too intoxicated to notice the obvious discomfort of the woman beneath him. He comes within minutes, something Arya cannot help but be grateful for. Her maidenhood had not meant much to her, but she did not prefer to stretch the moment. The captain collapses above her and groans.

She pushes him off and sits up, frowning against her will. She's disheartened to the point of leaving the inn and returning later to finish the job.

But then he mutters, "Big job ahead. Leaving bright and early tomorrow for the service of the bastard Stark."

_Bastard Stark._

Arya turns to him, sure she had heard wrong. "What did you say?"

The captain is sighing softly, almost asleep.

Arya slaps his face and he sputters awake. "What did you say?" she demands, her face inches from his at arm's length. "About Stark?"

The man mumbles and Arya has to concentrate to hear him over the deafening, "King in the North."

"Who is?" Arya grabs hold of the man's tunic in her fist and shakes him. "_Who is?_"

He blinks, narrows his eyes and stares at her. "You're not the girl I came here with. Where's the blonde? The pretty one?"

Arya leans closer to him and hisses, "Who is the King in the North?"

"Jon Snow. Jon Stark. Legitimized when he killed the Bolton bastard. They're all bastards, all of them, running the kingdoms."

"Jon is the King in the North?" Arya whispers, her heart swelling in her chest. She releases his tunic and asks, "What about Sansa? Sansa Stark, Eddard's elder daughter?"

"Married. The Lannister imp. Or maybe she's the one who disappeared?" he ponders out loud. His eyes wander around the room, glazed. Arya thinks he's done talking, but then he continues, "The little one was married to the Bolton bastard, but when the Stark bastard got there, he said she weren't the real one."

"And the others? The younger brothers?"

The wind howled, throwing the shutters against the walls. The captain shrugged. "Who knows? Rumor says the littlest one's a cannibal now, his wolf kills the men and the boy eats the hearts. They call him a warg, a mad flesh-eating warg. Bunch of beasts, I tell you."

Arya holds back a growl. She can't argue. She, at least, is a beast.

"The pretty daughter, was that the little one or the big one?" The captain asks.

"Sansa. The elder daughter," Arya whispers under her breath, but he hears her anyway, even over the rain. Perhaps she didn't whisper after all. Stark voices did not hide, they were not meant to.

"I saw her once, in Kings Landing. Went to swear fealty to another bastard- her betrothed," the captain stumbles over the long word. "Red hair, big dresses, tits like the golden queen. There's a cunt I wouldn't mind forcing my cock in."

Arya's sorrow contorts. Anger flares in her, a fury she did not know she was capable of possessing. Her elegant and lovely sister, with lemon cakes in her hands, spoken of by this lowly creature. "Don't you dare," Arya warns in a dangerously low voice, her long limbs straddling the man. "You take that back."

But the captain doesn't notice her weight shifting- isn't listening, rambling on, "Hands like a bird, tiny. You think she's red down there, between her legs?" He asks and looks up at Arya just as her hands wrap around his throat.

"You take that back!" She shrieks madly. "_Take it back!"_ The rain falls harder, thunder roaring overhead, her high-pitched battle cry lost in the cacophony.

A gargled choke escapes his lips and he flails his arms. Despite being smaller than him, Arya squeezes both legs around his waist and holds on, her thumbs find the sensitive point on his neck where his pulse throbs beneath her. Her tendons stick out sharp and pale against her hands, nails digging into the meaty flesh of the captains fat folds. She feels bones shifting beneath her hands, muscles crushing, and she relishes the feelings. Even without fangs or claws, she can constrict this man's throat that had uttered such disgraceful words against her sister.

His lips are slowly losing blood, turning blue.

(_not the blue of eyes not the blue of the sea not the blue of lightning_

_the blue of death)_

His eyes open wide, giving him the appearance of being surprised. Even Arya is surprised when she feels him weakening under her; surprised her petite body had the strength and the will, as if she knew almost instinctively what to do to kill this man. He violently thrashes against her one last time, but she only presses down harder, wrists aching with the effort, knuckles locked in a tight grip, tiny droplets of rain spattering against her face as his life drains away.

She takes longer to choke him to death than he had taken to come when fucking her.

For long after, she cannot remove her fingers from his throat. She stares into his dead eyes, candles flickering and throwing shadows across his astonished violet face. There is no strength left in her to move and she sits atop his stiff cadaver. Finally, she leans away, hands raking his bare chest as they left his neck and hips settling back. The action is almost sensual.

She dismounts him and collects the tatters of Elysa's dress on the floor. Almost curiously, Arya examines his body, ensuring there is no blood. It isn't until she flips his heavy form over that she sees a small stain on the bedsheets, already dried and turning a dark maroon.

_But how? I strangled him._

It takes her a moment to realize it is not his blood, it is hers.

She does not regret or repent. She raises her chin and walks out of the inn into the storm, letting it wash her clean, congratulating herself on a job well done. His words do not leave her mind, and neither does his astounded face. He did not know she was an animal, he mistook her for human. She appreciates the chance to see him die slowly.

There is beauty in asphyxiation.

* * *

She is preparing for bed when the Waif finds her. Arya does not look up, only nods to acknowledge her presence.

"You have lost your innocence," the Waif says with some mourning.

"No," Arya retorts, finding the idea ridiculous, the pity in the Waif's voice even moreso. "I lost my innocence when they killed my father and my brother and my mother. Now, I have lost only whatever vestiges remained of being a proper lady. I do not care for the loss."

The Waif smiles, "You do not think you are a lady?"

Arya smiles, baring her teeth. "I am a wolf."

"Can a wolf not be a lady?"

"Only Sansa Stark can be a wolf and a lady. The rest of us can accept ourselves for what we are. I am not a lady, I am a wolf," Arya repeats, but then her face falls.

The Waif is at her side in an instant, warm small hands on her shoulders, asking, "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Sansa," Arya murmurs. "My brothers."

The girl is quiet before saying, "I offer consolation."

"I need none," she snaps.

"Are you okay?"

Knowing she was speaking of more than material pain, Arya shrugs and purposefully answers, "A soreness between my legs, perhaps. I'll need moon tea."

The Waif nods in understanding, hesitates and asks, "Are they alive?"

Arya knows inherently that she is asking about her sister. Arya holds back the sudden weight in her stomach, the lump that suddenly makes it difficult to talk. Clearing her throat, she says, "I don't know. The captain didn't know. Only that one of them is King in the North now."

The Waif nods and leaves Arya alone to wallow.

Her pack, it was all unraveling. All she could do was hope more of them wouldn't die, that she would meet them all with rosy cheeks and long hair and vengeance in their blood. Vengeance that would give them strength, the kind that had helped Arya complete her task today, to rip their enemies in half, to bring about life once more in Winterfell.

There is beauty in life.


	4. The Art of the Wolf

The girl thought she knew what blood was, how it smelled and tasted, how it looked, what it felt like slick and sticky against her skin.

* * *

Then she tears out the throat of a man with her teeth, his warm blood gushing over her muzzle- hot and salty. Her claws hold him down while she digs in and tears out long chunks of meat, heart, liver, stomach. She laps at the blood pooling in his ribcage with a long tongue, watching tiny specks rise in the air with each stroke. It stains her fur, sinking deep within the coat and settling there. Her pack stands around her, letting her eat the kill first; the air is filled with their panting and distinct scents. Beside her stands her large black-furred mate. He isn't the same as herself, this much she knows, but she has not met another like herself since her sister had been slain and her brothers scattered.

When her belly is full of soft flesh and her hunger sated, she licks her maw clean and uses the snow to wipe clean her fur. She leaves the pure white snow muddied and crimson.

Even with the cleansing, when she walks away from the frenzied feeding of her pack, her prints leave red marks on the freezing hard-packed soil of the road.

The girl thought she knew what blood was, then the wolf taught her she was wrong.

* * *

She also does not know what a "warg" is. She has heard the word before, thrown carelessly, whispered in fear, spat with disgust, regarded with respect and admiration. But she does not know what it means. It seems to her, these days, all she learns is how little she truly knows.

She seeks out the Waif and joins her at the table where she is crushing herbs, asks her in a whisper, "What is a warg?"

The Waif raises an eyebrow, her childish face curious. "Why do you ask?"

"Just something a man said once."

"A man you killed." The Waif does not ask, she says. Arya nods in agreement. "You truly do not know?" Arya shakes her head. The Waif grins devilishly.

"Just tell me," she snaps with impatience. Ever impatient, ever exasperated.

"A warg wears the skin of others," the child says.

"Like the Handsome Man taught me? To change faces?"

"No, he taught you to create skin. A warg slips into the skin of another," the Waif corrects. "Another living being."

"Like a direwolf," Arya whispers, eyes wide, a sudden clarity rushing into her mind.

"Like a direwolf," the Waif reclaims, her voice equally hushed and secretive.

* * *

The next time she dreams as a wolf, she doesn't remain a spectator. She waits until the wolf is running alone through the woods of her territory, pack far behind her and mate asleep at the den. The girl's conscious nudges the wolf, lightly, gently. A soothing murmur.

_It's me. I'm here._

Nymeria stops midrun and cocks her head to one side. Her sharp eyes scan the woods and she yelps; not a complaint or a warning: a call. A pup separated from her pack.

Arya murmurs again, her mind touching the wall between wolf and beast, stroking at her fur. Nymeria sits back on her haunches and keeps her eyes on the trees, ears waiting to hear the approach of her human. She paws at the ice-cold ground in frustration.

Nobody comes to her physically. Again Nymeria hears the sound of someone she knew once and she throws back her head and this time, she howls long and hard at the moon. It is a heartbreaking wail of anguish and loss.

Arya flinches mentally and draws back her nudges, worried she wouldn't be able to bear the strength and power in that howl.

From a distance, she hears her pack join in the howl, a chorus of untamed beings. That is when Arya knows what she too must do. She tip-toes again to the surface of Nymeria's conscious and howls. It is not a piercing howl, it is questioning and puzzled.

Nymeria's howl cuts off and she cocks her ears to place the direction of the sound. Arya howls again, visceral, familiar, reaching deep inside her Stark roots to find the sleeping wolf and rousing it- feeding it and provoking it. Arya's howl changes pitch, louder this time, finding the sliver of moon in the sky of Westeros.

_Sister. I have come back._

Nymeria faces upward and continues the song, her loss changing to elation, to comfort. She recognizes the girl. Her pack. Her sister. Their separate minds call out in one long howl of reunited souls, impossible to tell apart. Nymeria rejoices, picks out the conscious inside her and allows it access.

Almost immediately, Arya is bombarded by sensation: the dust motes in the air, several different distinct wolves howling to her from the south, each scent in the woods of man and creature alike, the lingering taste of Nymeria's last meal on her tongue, the smells of each of her siblings in her memory.

There is something else as well, a sense Arya cannot understand, of direction. She knows where her mate is lying, she knows where to run for food, where to mark the borders of her territory. She knows how to contact her siblings, but no longer has anyone to reach out for. She knows which siblings are dead. It is there, a large void in her mind: two of her pack is gone. One is too feral to connect with. The silent one is in peril, something unnatural surrounds it. The third, she senses, is becoming less wolf each day and more- more stagnant. More weirwood.

Arya digs through each of these thoughts, every memory Nymerua has collected. She feels Nymeria doing the same to her. Much of it confounds the wolf, but here and there, the wolf yips in understanding: the sensation of blood and danger, warmth of a fire and food plenty, the need to seek out a mate in heat. The wolf, Arya is surprised to note, also connects her physical needs with the broad shouldered and black-haired bastard.

Arya ruffles Nymeria's fur, loving touches, trying to communicate that she would try never to leave again, to never lose her mind. Nymeria is not fully aware of how she can feel the girl's presence, but she also does not know how she can feel her brothers. She is still content with what she has managed.

It is not the first night Arya runs with Nymeria, but it is the first she knows she is running. She never wants to stop.

* * *

It is the Waif who wakes her. "You haven't woken yourself and come to serve the duties of the Kindly Man yet," she says as Arya's eyes open.

It takes her a moment to focus, with blunt human eyes and stunted human nose and stationary human ears. She feels the loss of her wolf like a physical ache. "I was... I was in the woods."

The Waif glances at her quizzically.

It is only then that Arya's face splits into a wide grin. "I was a wolf, I was Nymeria!" she exclaims in elation.

The Waif hisses for her to quiet and says, "It's dangerous! You must be careful."

"Of Nymeria?" Arya scoffs.

"Of the Kindly Man," the Waif returns.

Arya nods earnestly. "I will, from now on. But I couldn't leave her after finding her so many moons later. She isn't a pup anymore."

"And you are not a girl anymore."

"Aye, I am a woman," Arya agrees proudly.

"You are No One," the Waif snaps.

* * *

Arya returns to work soon after. She spends more and more time lost in her thoughts then concentrating at the task she was given.

With each new kill, she returns to Nymeria at night and compares tactics. This one, cleaved through the middle, that one's tendons ripped out, which muscles were taut as she sliced through them, which one's put up a fight. She learns with the wolf, each new smell and taste, which leaves smell of toxins and which lakes have been polluted by the bodies of dead humans. Arya feels a detached sympathy for each body Nymeria drags out of the water. They are not her kin anymore; she is no longer human. Not with Nymeria anyway.

One night, Nymeria happens across a forge while seeking out new territory; the winter had made it difficult to find fresh meat without leading to extinction of those poor animals. As soon as the girl becomes aware, Arya tugs at Nymeria to stop and the wolf does. She whimpers in protest and confusion, but then she catches a scent: charred metal and hope. Arya seems to find it worth examining, so Nymeria doesn't argue.

The wolf ventures closer to the forge. The sound of steel striking metal inside echoes, despite the late hour. A warm glow of lit fires comes through the window, followed by the smell of fresh baked bread. Nymeria's mouth salivates and Arya scolds the wolf.

_Not food. _

She stands outside the smith's window for hours, until the sounds die out, until the fire turns to ashy coal, until Nymeria whines and complains. Only then do Arya and the wolf return to their path.

Nymeria visits the smith often from that night on, always careful not to be seen or allow any of the children stumble upon her unawares, always listening and inhaling. Arya is grateful to the wolf for obliging in this request, but Nymeria is simply happy to have her presence.

In the morning, she always wakes disappointed to find herself restrained by a dull woman's body with duties and tasks. She keeps an eye on Nymeria constantly, the distance between them serving as an encouragement rather than a deterrent.

For a time, Arya feels truly happy. She is a wolf and a woman and she is still faceless. She is the many arms of winter: howling winds and silent snow and beautiful foliage. She is a Stark.

* * *

Then, of course, the Kindly Man calls her into his chamber.

Arya silences her wolf and draws her face into a blank wall as she enters his study. She has been doing her work with regular sincerity, if not with attention. Each kill is flawless, every face retrieved to the room; the girl does not even leave shadows any longer when she prowls the streets of Braavos. She has become moonlight.

The Kindly Man waits with folded hands as she stands tall. He examines her slowly. "Who am I speaking to?"

"No One," she says with confidence.

"I will not chastise you for lying to me, but I will ask you to be honest. Who am I speaking to?"

Arya hesitates. "I am faceless. I am No One."

"You are lying," he says, not with dismay in his tone, but fact. "When I first saw you here, I felt the Many-Faced God telling me that you would be of use. I took the symbols to mean that you were destined to be one us of, faceless. It would seem that you were not sent here to be faceless, but you _were_ sent to be used. The Many-Faced God is not wrong, is never wrong. It is me, only human, who read his word wrong. Now, tell me. Who are you?"

She does not speak. She does not move, barely breathes. Only stares into his soft eyes with her hard gray ones. The man is not lying.

He must notice her reluctance. His voice lowers and he gently inquires, "I need to know who you are, my child."

"A-Arya," she says softly, stuttering. She hasn't spoken her name with her tongue in many many moons. "Arya Stark of Winterfell," she announces with conviction.

"And what does Arya Stark of Winterfell want?"

She breathes in through her nose, long and calculated. Unsure where to begin. "I don't know."

"Don't you?" the Man asks. She can't tell if he's mocking her or simply curious.

"I want many things. I want revenge. I want the blood of those who wronged me. I want to return to Winterfell. I want my father and mother, my brothers and my sister. I want peace."

"And how will you do that?"

Ary'a mouth twitches into the ghost of a smile. "I came to the House of Black and White."

The Man chuckles. "But there's something else, isn't there? How else will you accomplish what you want?"

"I…" Arya does not want to tell him, wants to tell him, wants to have nothing to tell. "I have help."

"Man or beast?"

She's taken aback by the question; it is not a natural question one would ask upon hearing what she had said. He knows something that she has not told him. She isn't pleased by this interrogation, intrusive and personal. Perhaps she has misnamed him, perhaps he is not what he looks. But how else would he know?

The Kindly Man grins. "The Handsome Man is not the only one who can read faces, Stark. Man or beast?"

"Both," she says, realizing she has no choice.

"Both?" he echoes.

"Both," she confirms.

Now it is his turn to look caught off guard. "Human companions?" he asks. "You're sure."

She thinks of blue eyes and strong arms, of the warm forge echoing with the sounds of hammering and steel. Even without her pack, she has help. "I'm sure."

He sighs, shrugs. "Regardless. It is not your human companions I am interested in. I want to know about the wolf. And don't lie to me again."

So Arya tells him. She tells him about Nymeria, about being in her body and her mind. She doesn't mention the forge or her missing siblings. With each spoken word, Arya feels a bit of herself returning. With each spoken word, she feels her unease grow stronger. She cannot shake off the feeling that she is being taken advantage of, revealing something about herself she would have preferred to keep.

The instincts of a wolf never lie.


	5. The Art of the Warg

The first time she's invited to one of the priests meetings, she is instantly wary. Why her? Why not the Waif? Even though it's been years upon years, the girl is now a woman. Arya's been here for much less time and she's almost certainly less learned. But the Kindly Man tells her to come anyway, and Arya's in no position to argue or disagree.

So she goes.

Down, past the servant's quarter, past the room with faces, down, down. In the last level, there is a small room where the meetings are held; it is cool and smells sweet swwet sweet (like blood and honey, _oh)_. She follows the Handsome Man and stands awkwardly by as the rest of them take their seats.

The Kindly Man is the last to enter. He stands at front and says, "Are all those here in service of the Many-Faced God?"

There is a chorus of yes's and aye's.

"And who am I speaking to?"

Again, they chant in unison, "No One."

The Kindly Man turns to give Arya a look, not a pleasant or understanding one, and she knows better than to lie, quickly saying, "Arya Stark of Winterfell."

Instantly, she feels all their eyes on her. She returns their gazes calmly, fighting the urge to even blink. She will not be intimidated or cowed. The Faceless Men, she thinks with a flicker of disdain. All men.

And all men must die.

The Stern Man is the first to say, "I object. One with a face at one of our councils? It's unheard of, absolutely unacceptable."

The Kind Man doesn't answer directly, instead addressing the room in general. "We do not know how the Many-Faced God works and it is not our place to question. We only grant one wish: that to the God of Death. And when he sends us a blessing, we accept it."

"Are you calling this girl a blessing?" asks the Fat Man in mockery, and she has to clench her jaw from correcting him. She is not a girl and she would gladly rip his throat open to prove the point.

"No, the girl is not a blessing," the Kindly Man says and Arya frowns. Was she here to be poked fun of? Then he continues, "What is a blessing is what the girl can do. Would you tell them, Arya, or shall I?"

She knows inherently what he's talking about and it angers her he would be willing to tell everyone present without asking her first. Though she should know better than to expect him to ask permission.

But Arya isn't embarrassed or craven. She will speak amongst them with confidence, like being invited to one of her father's meetings with the Lords of the North. If he could see her now, he would tell her not to hesitate. He would be proud of her. It is that thought giving her courage, so she clears her throat and says, "I'll tell them."

They all wait in silence.

"I am a Stark and I am a warg."

A whisper travels throughout the room, uncomfortable shifting in seats, secretive exchanged glances, murmuring. Arya can feel the disapproval emanating through the room, all of them frowning.

Except one of them. The Handsome Man gives her a quick wink and she can see one corner of his mouth rising. She's mentally grateful for his support, though she doesn't dare voice the sentiment.

The Stern Man speaks out again, "A warg? With all respect to the Many-Faced God, wargs are not trustable beings. They change their minds as quickly as their skin. We Faceless Men have discipline and control where wargs have nothing but raging emotion."

Arya wants to bare her teeth and snarl at him, show him just how right he is. Before she can, the Kindly Man says, "Are you questioning me? Or the judgment of the God, who was gracious enough to send us a warg at this opportune time?"

"What opportunity?" asks the Plagued Man, sounding curious, the scars on his face rippling as he leans closer.

"We do not meddle in affairs of the public, not the ones we haven't been paid for," the Kindly Man says. "But even we would be fools not to know the turmoil these lands have been in. Putting aside the rising threat of the Others, who have breached the Wall, we have a fight for the throne. We know the strife in Westeros, the King in the North making his way to fight the Tyrell and Lannister armies. The Sand Snakes have reared their heads in favor of family Martell. And we have, here in Essos, the Khaleesi and her dragons gaining strength."

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Arya knows the purpose of the meeting, of inviting her to join it, of telling the other Men she is a warg.

"You mean to have me warg into one of her dragons?" Arya blurts without a second thought, involuntarily taking a step toward the Man in indignation. She thinks he will scold her or hit her, or one of the Men will tell her to be quiet and stay out of council affairs, but to her surprise, they all lean forward in silence to hear the Kindly Man's answers.

He says calmly, "Yes, I do. To warg into one of her dragons and kill the khaleesi."

The Men all turn to look at her when she insists, "You must be mad! I can't do something like that!"

"And you must be trained so you can. But it is what you are here for; it is how you will serve the Many-Faced God."

"Trained? And who will train me? Which of you has been in the body of a beast, has felt the wolf tear out throats of men under their paws like they were ants, has felt the jaws of a cat crush the skull of a mouse like lemon cakes, has quenched their thirst for blood in the skin of another?" She waits, staring in to the eyes of each man in turn before saying, "It's not a circus trick. You cannot train a wolf to howl or a cat to hunt."

The Kindly Man considers. "Do you mean to say you are prepared already?"

"For a dragon?" Arya hesitates. "Why should I be? You have already made it clear that I am not faceless."

"But you are here to serve the Many-Faced God, are you not?"

Again, Arya finds herself torn between admitting she only wanted to learn to kill and between staying on at the House of Black and White for as long as she could. She says softly, "Aye, I am."

"The Temple has already received payment for the deed to be done and make the Targareyan beasts seem the culprit. So it shall be."

"If I had wanted payment," Arya sneers, "I would have gone to work for the Lannisters."

"It is the Lannisters that have paid us," the Kindly Man confesses.

There is a stunned silence around the table. The Kindle Man did not typically reveal client names or payments.

Arya cannot help but laugh at this jape the Gods were playing on them all; lions hiring wolves to tame dragons. "Then you can return their gold to them and tell them to shove it up their arses. I'm not warging into the khaleesi's dragons and I'm not killing her."

The Kindly Man is the one who laughs this time, but his laugh is harsh and cruel; she cannot imagine how she ever called him Kind. "They did not pay us in gold, girl, and if you refuse to do the task for which they sent us Myrcella Lannister, we will slit the little virgin's throat and hang her face in the room, and you can be sure that blood will be on your Stark hands. Do you understand?"

In that moment, Arya wants nothing more than to pounce and gouge out his tongue, but all she can think of is the poor girl whose life was ruined, _like another girl she knew. _Arya swallows back a lump and says, "I understand."

"Then you have one moon to prepare yourself before the khaleesi visits Braavos with her army. You can leave the council room and leave us to the rest of our affairs now," his dismissal is almost worse than his task, turning her worthless. Only a tool.

She'll show them. Arya clenches her fist and leaves.

;

Myrcella is beautiful and generous. She has her mother's grace and elegance, and her father's honesty and poise. Arya is not a fool, she knows who the girl's parents are, both of them. But she doesn't hold the gentle girl for their mistakes. Myrcella cries the first entire week without stop, no matter how many sweets the Handsome Man brings her or how many perfumes the Waif makes for her. Arya keeps her distance, watches from the corner of her eye. She cannot let the girl die. She knows what she must do.

;

The khaleesi arrives in Braavos with much fanfare. Everyone has been waiting for her; streets have been swept, canals have been cleaned, brothels have even scrubbed their walls and tidied the streets. Mother of dragons, they call her, the rightful Queen of Westeros.

Arya is kept in the Temple, surrounded by the Faceless Men, the Waif, and Myrcella. The Kindly Man sits across from her. She tries not to think about how little she likes being trapped in their midst, how much she would rather be joining the festivities. Myrcella's kind eyes hold her back every time and the Kindly Man's threat hangs over them both like a swinging knife.

He asks her, "Are you ready?"

Arya takes a deep breath. No, she is not. Over the last moon, she had taken as many bodies as she could, dogs, mice, cats, horses, even fish, though she had thought she was drowning as fish and could not wear their skin for longer than a few seconds. She always awakened choking and gasping for air. It reminded her of slit throats and the taste of metal. Even though her mother was a Tully, Arya loathes being in the water.

She can only imagine how the dragons will make her feel.

"Yes," she answers with surprising calm in her voice.

"Then please, by all accounts, feel more than welcome to warg whenever you can," he says in a dry tone.

She closes her eyes, knowing she is leaving her body vulnerable, and reaches out with her mind. The city is crawling with animals of all sorts, particularly animals the khaleesi's army has brought along, elephants, camels, horses, even a lion. Arya feels all of their life, their consciousness, their thoughts, rubbing against her own. And in the very edge of her own mind, the constant: Nymeria.

There are three big presences in the city and Arya knows inherently that these are the dragons. Arya approaches them cautiously, knowing she's very likely to never return from this task, prepared for the possibility. She steels her mind and lightly touches the surface of the first dragon.

The dragon's mind pays her no attention, but she can feel the heat lurking under. Arya grazes over it again, gentle, a gossamer touch of fingerprints. She feels like a fly next to a dragon, but she assures herself she is a wolf, and knocks at the surface once more.

This time she feels a ripple: irritation. She is never going to get anywhere like this, with nudges and knocks. This is not how one fights a dragon. A horse, perhaps, or a dog. Those animals were willing, they invited the other presence. Dragons were more similar, she found, to cats: impossible to tame but possible to control. Arya prepares herself against the dragon's mind and plunges.

Instantly the dragon's mind is upon her, roaring, _blazing_ with a fury. But even behind all that intensity, she feels a name: Drogon. And she knows, with a deep fear and panic, that dragons are nothing like cats, that her feeble mind could never control it. His networks are not nearly as organized as a human, but Drogon makes up for in vast sheer power what he lacks in intelligence. Overwhelmed, Arya considers backing out now but there's fire everywhere, wildfire on her flesh and seeping under her skin, her muscles, and settling into her bones and she races through Drogon's mind trying to find shelter or relief but an orange glow follows everywhere, and the glow is hot scorching burning blistering her entire being and she throws back her head and howls and-

There is a silence, coolness.

She has confused him. He is unused to howling. Arya bristles, throwing shadows through his well-lit mind, and takes the opportunity to retreat to a smaller corner in the endless sea of meat and flame and loyalty. Loyalty for the khaleesi. Their mother. An instinctive desire courses through Drogon's mind to protect her, a small red door. Again, Arya despairs. The Kindly Man could not have expected the inside of the dragons mind to be this.

Hoping Drogon would not notice her licking her wounds, she tries to melt into the periphery, but Drogon has no periphery. He is open and honest and brash. There is no hiding for the great beast, no edges or corners to slink into. It is completely unlike Nymeria, whose mind is full of nooks and crannies, shadows and darkness. She feels him curiously probe toward her, puzzled. A toy? Some new animal? Meat?

Arya growls at him to keep his distance and desperately looks for a way out. But it seems getting into a dragon's head is easier than getting out. The dragon sniffs at the trail she's left running through his mind.

He has found her already, but he isn't aware of doing so. The great beast doesn't realize the intrusion in his mind was another conscious; he swats at it, like a gnat, but she glides away on spider's silken wings. She is learning already to take advantage of his mind, of the glow and glimmer of its cavernous walls and the heat in the air making it easier for her to move.

_Here, dragon, dragon,_ she calls, unsure if she's taunting him or baiting, but either way he bites and she lures him into the corner she hid in previously. His conscious is massive, a bulk moving through the palace, lumbering, lazy- ferocious, she knows. _Here, dragon, dragon._

A roar, surprisingly controlled. Arya realizes she is becoming accustomed to him. She feels sweaty and suffocating, even without a body, but she thinks she has Drogon figured out. He is used to being in control. He does not want to expend the effort to attack her. It will be his downfall, thinking a wolf cannot leap high enough to pierce reptilian skin.

_Here, dragon, dragon._

She thinks she can hear him stomping when he heads in her direction again. Space, she has so much space here. Arya's tempted to laugh, but she knows the slightest slip and she could end up crushed between his teeth, in the blazing hearth of Drogon's being. She keeps flitting back and forth, dragging him along, clucking and calling and he follows, curious and convinced he can catch her. _Here, dragon, dragon._

She feels it more than sees it, Drogon getting tired. She is beginning to wear him down, his thunderous steps slowing, the turns of his head to keep track of her labored. Once or twice, he has to struggle to find her in one of the sides- so much space. She takes full advantage of it, knowing Drogon has never needed to navigate the area and would be incapable of steadily chasing the intruder. He droops, his consciousness sluggish and peeved.

_Here, dragon, dragon._

This time, Drogon does not follow. He crashes down to the warmth of his mind, tail lashing to curl up around his large sharp snout, bloodshot eyes falling closed. Asleep. Vulnerable. In this condition, to Arya, he looks smaller and more manageable than anything she's ever felt. Smaller than a horse, smaller than a cat. Darling dragon. She wonders briefly if he's fallen asleep in real life as well.

She rests for a moment and gathers her thoughts, knowing this had been the easy part and prepares for the worst. Inhaling the muggy heat and steeling her nerves, Arya takes one long look at the dragon and lets herself fall upon his conscious like wolves do upon lesser prey.

Down.

When she lands on his back, Arya jabs her sharp claws into him and-

_HRUUUUAAAAAAAANGHHHRR!_

With a terrifying roar, the dragon wakes, his conscious suddenly ablaze. He bucks and Arya struggles to hang on. From where her claws are digging into his skin rises a rank stench, rotting meat. Suddenly terrified of falling, she clings on and sinks in deeper and deeper until. Until.

She feels the power trembling under her, writhing, quaking and morphing.

Once, when she had been a little girl listening to the stories of Old Nan, she had dreamt of dragons and wolves and soaring through the sky and howling at the moon.

Now, her dreams have become reality.

She is the dragon.

Through his eyes, she can see a great feast, long tables laid out with food, but all she can smell are spices and meat. The nose is not as sharp as Nymeria, eyes better at focusing at a distance, ears hearing only certain frequencies.

Experimentally, Arya flaps her wings and Drogon keens for her to stop; he does not like being pupeteered. The gust of wing sends up sand and she feels a stirring- of her brothers. Drogon's brothers. Through his eyes, Arya notices she's in one of the inns near the canal, one of the lavish and wealthy parts of the city.

Despite Drogon's reluctance, Arya flaps her wings again and takes to the air. Her brothers look on curiously.

Flying is nothing like running. The wind under her wings is soft and caressing and Arya wants to howl in joy but when she opens her mouth, a column of flame spurts into the air instead. _Interesting._

Arya heads down into the city, feeling a tug at the edge of her tail- the khaleesi's voice demanding Drogon's return. Drogon struggles between Arya's control and Dany's command, but Arya's hold over his conscious is too strong to fight. He continues to fly southward, in the direction of the House of Black and White. Within minutes, Arya can make out the building.

This next part will be complex, Arya knows. She'll need to tread the line carefully. She lands on the sloping roof of the temple, claws digging into the stone to hold on. Distantly, she feels a vibration like a vague memory. _Her body._

She spits fire at the edge of the temple, feeling it catch on the wooden support beams and takes once again to the sky. Once she has put enough space between herself and the building, she shuts down Drogon's whining and builds up speed, heading straight for the temple. Another rumble shakes her body. She doesn't have much time now.

Flapping her wings harder, she realizes how fast she is going now. The ground beneath her shakes. She can feel sweat dripping from her body, stock still. A few seconds from impact, Arya let's go of Drogon.

;

Her eyes flash open. Around her, fire.

Outside, a thunderous roar and Drogon rights himself from crashing, just the tip of his wing grazing against the temple. Arya grins. She knew he would be able to control his body as soon as she left. One of the beams falling distracts her.

The Kindly Man is screaming something at the Waif, who holds a bucket of water in her small hands. The other Faceless Men are evacuating the temple. When the Kindly Man see's Arya's eyes open, he grabs her by the wrist and growls, "You little bitch. What have you done?"

"Made sure you and the rest of your cronies will never threaten another innocent girl again," she snaps, jerking her hand back. _Myrcella. _She's behind the Waif, cowering. Arya gestures toward the entrance for them to run. The bucket falls out of the Waif's hands and she nods, guiding Myrcella out.

"We _helped _you," the Kindly Man yells, ignoring the others, eyes furious. "You came to us and _begged_."

"And you used me."

"We'll come for you," the Man says in quiet menace and takes a step toward her.

Anger surges through her. "I'll kill whoever you send. I'll slit their fucking throat open," she snarls and leaps forward, her hands finding his neck. She sees the surprise on his features. He hadn't expected her attack. The flames lick the walls around them and Arya's grip tightens.

The Kindly Man gurgles, face turning red then purple. His breath rushes out in a hiss and he manages to choke out with the last of his strength, "The Many-Faced God… does not forgive."

"Fuck your Gods," Arya whispers and watches the life slip out of The Kindly Man.

_Valar Morghulis._

_;_

Days later, she sneaks into the private chambers of the most expensive inns suite. Bowed before Daenerys, Arya admits everything to the khaleesi: that she is a Stark, that she is a Warg, that she is responsible for Drogon's erratic behavior a week earlier.

"A Stark," the silver-haired queen murmurs, nose wrinkling in disgust, but she does not call for her guards. In her features, Arya can see Targaryen blood- long sloping cheekbones and straight eyebrows, intensity perched on her pursed lips. It is a familiar expression. She has seen those features on another bastard face. The Handsome Man had not lied when he told her faces revealed all manner of secrets.

"Names do not matter," Arya says at last.

"Don't they?" The queen snorts.

"M'lady, Khaleesi. Your father burned my grandfather and nuncle in a court full of Targaryens and other nobles. Your lord brother kidnapped my aunt and brought about Robert's Rebellion and the usurping of the Iron Throne. I had the opportunity to kill you, to take your own dragon- _your son-_ and drive his claws through your chest. So you'll have to forgive me for having the audacity to say that no, names do not matter."

Daenerys looks furious for a moment and Arya is sure she will need to defend herself from an onslaught. But within a few seconds, her violet eyes soften and she says, "You… controlled Drogon?"

Arya nods wordlessly and to her surprise, the khaleesi laughs.

When she is offered a place in the Queensguard and accepts, Arya does not smile.

She knows what it means: more blood on her hands.


	6. The Art of Return

The first time she sees him again, broad shoulders and shaggy black hair and fire-blackened hands, he's drinking down a mug of ale as though he was a man dying of thirst. Long desperate gulps, the tendons in his neck expanding and contracting with each swallow.

She studies him from her perch in the rafters. Arya has no doubt the rumors must have reached his ears: the Stark on the wolf, the Stark who changes face, the Stark returned to Westeros with the Khaleesi, the Stark who slew every white walker in her way. And yet he is here. Not on the road to find her, not mourning, not asking. Drinking ale. She feels a peculiar ache that she has to struggle to force down.

Stupid bull-head, she thinks, narrowing her eyes.

Almost as if he's heard, the blacksmith looks up toward the rafters. For a second, less than that, their eyes meet. Then Arya's gone, into the darkness. She sees his eyes scan the rafters, blinking, head turning rapidly from side to side.

She knows where to go, where he will instinctively follow her to and she waits there for him.

* * *

He enters the forge, confused. The flame in his hearth has burned down low to embers, casting an eerie vague glow over his tools. Arya waits for him to close the door behind him and take a single step forward before revealing herself, melting out of the shadows.

"You selfish bastard, never once sought me out," she sneers in a low voice coated with venom and hatred. Her knees are tensed, prepared to strike.

"You accuse me?" he throws back instantly, as if he had already memorized what he wanted to say, as if he had thought those words over and over again in his mind, spikes and thorns rising with every syllable. "Traitorous bitch. Runs off into the wild without a glance backward."

He has the audacity to blame me?

It should surprise her, the way he's prepared to defend himself and challenge her, as if he's been thinking about it too, practicing what he wants to say. But then again, nothing surprises her anymore really. It does anger her, stoking a fire in her belly she's been harboring since the day she left the Brotherhood, a fire that had simmered down into smoke and embers that has been reignited.

She snarls and leaps at him, both arms outstretched. Gendry grunts in pain when she connects, knocking him sideways off his feet. He feels Arya's lithe form on him, but before she can get a clear shot, he swats at her with the back of his hand. She lands beside him hard, breath leaving her body in a huff.

He gets to his feet, dazed. But she can move faster than him. A moment later, she's on his back, clinging with a deadly force he couldn't have foreseen. Her arms lock around his throat in a choke hold, fists pressing into the tender flesh.

The lack of oxygen makes Gendry thrash about, grasping behind him but unable to get a hold. She digs her nails into his neck, leaving bright red half-moons leaking with blood. He charges backward with a mighty force until Arya slams against the wall, her spine striking the concrete with a sickening thud.

She lands on her knees on a broken sword, feeling the metal slash through the fabric of her breeches. Her muscles relax in one leg where they should've been coiled. Warmth gushes out of the wound, sending a jolt of fury through Arya. She hisses through her teeth, more shock than hurt.

He dares to make me bleed?

Feral and provoked, she launches herself toward him where he's kneeling to catch his breath. He falls flat on his back and Arya takes the opportunity to sit square on his chest. With a guttural sound, she pulls back a fist and lets loose to the side of his face. Her first hit opens a gash under his eyebrow. The second sends his face flying into the dusty floor.

Before the third can connect, he swiftly throws his head forward: a move reckless but successful. His thick skull hits Arya in the mouth, splitting open her lip. She gasps and rolls off him, temporarily winded by the headbutt.

Gendry reaches out blindly, blood sticking one eye shut, and feels for a weapon: his hammer, tongs, scrap metal, anything. Before he can reach anything, there is something sharp at his throat.

Needle.

The game is over. She's bored of playing.

"Who was I to look back at?" she demands standing above him, voice hoarse. "A bull-headed boy?"

"And was I meant to seek out mi'lady in the woods of Winterfell or the streets of Braavos?" he replies, and lapses into coughing up phlegm and blood.

"Don't call me that," she says, and there is no longer an edge of ice to her voice, only lassitude.

He licks his bruised lips and whispers instead, "Arya."

Her name rolling off his tongue- she is surprised for a moment when he doesn't suffocate with the burden of it in his mouth. She tries not to think about all the years she'd waited for him to utter those two syllables, how she had imagined and fantasized, mumbling and screaming and declaring.

"Gendry," she dares her own throat to say, to try the word and its contours, to feel the thrill in her veins of saying it aloud at last.  
They hang in the warm air of the forge, two names spoken by weary bones and parched throats.

She lets Needle drop, clattering to the floor and stands there, vulnerable. If she wanted to kill him, he'd be dead already. She doesn't. If Gendry wanted to kill her, he could reach out for the sword and run her through with it. He doesn't. Arya ignores the twinge in her bleeding knee and kneels down over him. With her sleeve, she cleans the blood off his face, feeling him tremble beneath her, wince whenever she brushed over open wounds. The cloth becomes soaked through, crimson and heavy.

"I asked about you," he croaks, each exhale touching Arya's hair. "I asked everyone I met, everywhere I went. I asked them about the young Stark sister, I asked them about a girl with grey eyes and brown hair, I asked about a boy with grey eyes and brown hair. I never stopped asking. They said you were dead, married to a Bolton, that you'd become a direwolf, you were at the Wall with your brothers, you'd joined the Khaleesi's ranks, you rode dragons over the Narrow Sea, you fought the Others with dragonglass embedded in your fists."

He stops reciting the list to catch his breath and Arya can still feel the phantom weight of obsidian buried in her knuckles. If he looks, he'll find the scars. The memory is bile and she doesn't let Gendry speak anymore of the past, presses her lips to his.

He tastes of blood, salt and iron and sweat. He tastes of dust and charred metal and hope. His tongue is like the godswood in summer, blossoming and thriving, and she is the traveler who hasn't rested under shade in miles and now all she wants to do is rest and rest.

She has waited for this kiss all her life.

Gendry takes her into his arms, welcoming first, then desperate. He sits up, battling for dominance, and succeeds in getting Arya on her back. The crumpled bit of an armor digs into her thigh and she squirms under him. With a growl, she flips him back without releasing his lips and this time he knows to stay down.

They pull apart for a moment, and her eyes roam over his face, cuts and bumps that she's inflicted upon him in wrath. She can see where the blood is beginning to dry and crust on his skin, where it still flows from exposed gashes. She wonders if her face looks any better. Despite that, he wears a serene smile and she cannot help pressing her lips against every inch of that bruised face.

Gendry waits patiently for her lips to return to his, and he sighs with pleasure when they do. That sigh, into her mouth, is what decides it for Arya. Her weight settles over his body, straddling as she slowly, painstakingly pulls his tunic up. He grunts with effort as she slides it over his head and she frowns. Her fingers work their way down his chest and sculpted stomach to his breeches. She can feel he's already hard under her and it delights her.

She wants this only for herself, him all for herself. Fierce and protective, her hips grind against Gendry until he groans and murmurs her name. She doesn't give him the chance to entirely slip off his breeches before she stands and undoes her own clothes. She wears nothing underneath them and Gendry's eyes widen when she lets her tunic and breeches crumple to the floor beside Needle.

"I, y-you, Arya, beautiful," he stammers, incapable of more coherency and this too elicits a smile. She knows she does not have a child's body anymore, curves and softness where bones had once jutted from her skin. She can see him pausing at each of her scars, every healed over wound, and she takes pride in this.

When she first lowers herself onto him, Gendry moans and closes his eyes.

"No," she purrs, "Open your eyes. I want to look into them," and he does, the intense blue visible even in dim orange glow. It is those eyes she has always dreamed of and now they're here. She moves with experience, slow at first, never breaking the connection between their eyes. His hands grasp at her hips and pull her closer with every thrust, filling her completely.

Arya's hand scratch down his chest, leaving welts without drawing blood, marking him as her own. He doesn't complain, dare not protest lest the fantasy break. Her breath quickens when she begins moving faster, skin on skin, tilting her chin up in elation, mouth formed in a silent howl.

The wolf taming the bull.

Mine, she thinks as he comes under her. With a shudder, she too reaches her climax and collapses above him, bloody slick skin on hers, shining in dim firelight. He doesn't move and she doesn't either, letting the sweat cool with him still inside her body. Within minutes, she finds herself drifting off to sleep with her head resting on his clavicle, the rising and falling of his chest more soothing than she had ever imagined in her dreams.

* * *

She finally tells him, many nights together later, lying draped over his spent body and drawing errant circles on his chest with lazy fingers.

"Your father was Robert Baratheon," she murmurs.

His body tenses under her. "No," he says flatly. Then, "How do you know?"

"I know the same way you know I'm right as soon as the words left my lips. He is there every time you glance at your reflection or wield a hammer."

"I'm not the only bastard with black hair and blue eyes in Westeros," Gendry tells her defiantly.

"What about in King's Landing? Was there only one bastard there? Was everyone else trained by a smith, paid by an unknown lord? Was everyone visited by the King's Hand? Was everyone ushered out of the city as soon as the lioness began hunting down stags?"

He moves to rise but she squeezes her legs and stays his hips. Sinking back into the mattress, Gendry is quiet, his jaw clenched so tight she's surprised his teeth haven't shattered yet. Arya grazes her lips over the muscles in his jowl gently, prompting him to say, "Still a bastard."

She feels the heaviness of those words, sighing out of his throat, resounding in his chest. "Bastards, baseborn, highborn," she shrugs. "Valar Morghulis."

His large hands roam her back, feeling each dimple and exploring every bone, running twice over the scars. "Would the princess of Winterfell prefer a bastard or a knight?"

"Winterfell has no princess. Winterfell has a queen, Sansa Stark."

"Don't jump around the question," he snaps, muscles taut.

She pushes up off him until she can meet his eyes. "I only want Gendry."

"Wouldn't be proper," he countered.

She only laughs a sound dry like withered leaves and lowers her head. "Proper," she whispers into the crevice of his neck. "Is chopping heads and slitting throats proper? Is bedding sailors and whores proper? Is speaking to dragons and riding direwolves proper?"

He has no answer at first, then, "And what would your Khaleesi say to the head of her Queensguard being with a bastard?"

"The Khaleesi wouldn't care," Arya tells him. "And I don't mean to marry you regardless. None of the guard commits to anything other than her."

"Then why are you with me?"

Arya's grey eyes are amused as she says, "Because none of the men or women in Braavos ever fucked me like you. Because in Queen's Landing, they shiver at my name and only approach me with their heads bent and knees touched to the ground, and here you hold your head high when you see me waiting in the forge. Because when I disappeared, you were the only one who asked about me. Because when I knocked you over, you didn't hesitate to knock me right back. Because none of the others are home, not even Sansa or Jon Targaryen or Rickon and Shaggydog, but you are. That's why I'm with you, Ser Gendry Waters of Hollow Hill, bastard of Robert Baratheon, and that's why no force in the world will ever drag me away."

She doesn't have to look at him to feel the smile spreading over his face. But she does anyway.

* * *

In the songs about the Khaleesi and her two consorts, they describe the glorious Dragon's Reign and they sing of her- the young Stark daughter. In the books about the defeat of the Others and the heroes and heroines, they will write of her, the untamed she-wolf. Not of her father or her mother, not the lions and the stags, but of her. They speak of her courage and her silver tongue, her beast and her sword, her time in Braavos and her time in Westeros, of her wild unbrushed mane and her lover, the blacksmith.

They do not sing that he is a bastard, only that she loved him until her dying breath.


End file.
